Located 34km west of Balfour on Hwy 3A, the town forms a tree-shaded grid of streets laid over the hilly slopes that edge down to the westernmost shores of Kootenay Lake. Most homes are immaculately kept and vividly painted, and even the commercial buildings along the parallel main streets - Baker and Vernon - owe more to the vintage architecture of Seattle and San Francisco than to the drab Victoriana of much of eastern Canada. If you want to add purpose to your wanderings, pick up the Heritage Walking Tour or the Heritage Motoring Tour pamphlets from the infocentre , 225 Hall St (June-Aug daily 8am-8pm; Sept-May Mon-Fri 8.30am-5pm; tel 352-3433 or 1-877/663-5706, www.nelsonchamber.bc.ca ), which takes you around the sort of houses that many Canadians dream of retiring to, and only occasionally oversells a place - notably when it lands you in front of the old jam factory and the electricity substation. Better bets are the courthouse and city hall, both designed by F.M. Rattenbury, also responsible for Victoria's Empress Hotel and Parliament Buildings. Free tours with a costumed guide are available from the infocentre in summer. If walking tours aren't your thing, perhaps the town's shops may be, particularly those of its artists and craftspeople, who in summer club together to present Artwalk , a crawl round many of the town's little galleries. Most of these have regular openings and wine-gorging receptions, making for numerous free-for-all parties. If you don't want to walk, take the restored tram that runs the length of the town's waterfront to the infocentre. Oliver's Books on Baker Street is excellent for maps, guides and general reading, with a bias towards the sort of New Age topics that find a ready market here. Another shop worth a stop is Still Eagle, 557 Ward St, the province's first hemp-store, where even snowboards are made from hemp.

For the most part the area owes its development to the discovery of copper and silver ore on nearby Toad Mountain at the end of the nineteenth century. Even though the mines declined fairly quickly, Nelson's diversification into gold and lumber, and its roads, railway and waterways, saved it from mining's usual downside. Today mining is back on the agenda as old claims are re-explored, and even if the idea of the town's Museum of Mines (daily 10am-4pm; free; tel 352-5242), next to the infocentre, leaves you cold, it's worth meeting the curator, an old prospector who talks at length - and interestingly - on the quest for silver, copper and gold, past and present.

It's probably less worthwhile to trek over to the Nelson Museum , about twenty-minutes' walk from the centre, which offers a rather haphazard display that's obviously the work of enthusiastic amateurs (summer daily 1-6pm; winter Mon-Sat 1-4.30pm; $2). There are, however, odd points of interest, notably a chronicle of the original 1886 Silver King Mine that brought the town to life, as well as tantalizingly scant details on the Doukhobor, a Russian religious sect whose members still live in self-contained communities around the Kootenays . Better instead to walk to Lakeside Park near the Nelson Bridge, where there are surprisingly good sandy beaches and picnic areas, boat rentals and waterfront paths. If you're here between May and mid-October, make it a point to stop by the Saturday Farmers and Artisans Market in Cottonwood Falls Park (9.30am-3pm). Organic fruits, vegetables, delicious breads and local arts and crafts are all for sale.